The Past, Present, and Future of Chemotherapy

In May, Hank Green told us he had been diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system. We are glad to hear that he is in remission, but it wasn't a simple journey. Green went through a brutal course of chemotherapy and radiation.

Chemotherapy is tough; it's basically poison that we hope will kill the cancer before it kills us. Yet we have learned so much about cancer and its treatment that chemotherapy has advanced spectacularly in the past few decades. A commenter at YouTube told us he went through chemotherapy 40 years ago, and when he describes the process today, doctors call it barbaric. Still, every patient who submits to chemotherapy contributes to our knowledge of what can work and what doesn't, and the odds of success are raised by what we learn. In this video, Green explains how and why we use chemotherapy, and how it's getting better all the time.